This disclosure relates to structures for redirecting light. Particularly structures either applied to or built into glazing for redirecting daylight into building interior environments.
Daylighting is the purposeful use of direct, diffuse, and reflected sunlight to meet the illumination requirements of an architectural space. Illumination requirements include both the quantitative (for example, amount and distribution) and qualitative (for example, well-being, visual, comfort, and health) aspects of daylight.
Fenestration creates a visual connection between the building interior and the outside world. It can control the amount and quality of daylight entering an interior environment of a building. In a daylighting design, fenestration purposely designed to transmit daylight into interior environments is often referred to as “daylight windows.” Their size, shape, placement, and optical characteristics can control the quantity and quality of daylight entering an interior environment. Fenestration glazing designed for daylighting can also include various treatment to control the quality, distribution, or redirection of daylight.
Fenestration glazing can include surface treatment that redirects how daylight comes into the interior environment. This may be particularly helpful in both commercial and residential interior environments where daylight does not reach all portions of the rooms; for example, in a deep interior environment with windows or a curtain wall on only one side of the space. Recently, micro-optical structures, typically using prismatic shaped structures, are being applied to fenestration glazing to redirect daylight into the interior environment. Some manufacturers apply the micro-optical surfaces to a flexible sheet or film that can be applied to the glazing by adhesive. Many of these solutions are focused on both the redirection of daylight to improve the quality of light in a space and energy efficiency, as daylighting can be effective energy saving strategy.